A close-up look at NYC education policy, politics,and the people who have been, are now, or will be affected by acts of corruption and fraud. ATR CONNECT assists individuals who suddenly find themselves in the ATR ("Absent Teacher Reserve") pool and are the "new" rubber roomers, and re-assigned. The terms "rubber room" and "ATR" mean that you or any person has been targeted for removal from your job. A "Rubber Room" is not a place, but a process.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The Rubber Rooms and the Misinformation of Steven Brill by Betsy Combier

The education of more than 1 million public school children in New York City is a big business. Too big to allow any employee to undermine or sabotage the huge amount of funds generated every year by no bid contracts, scrubbed grades, false test results, and other misinformation that wins big awards. I have attended hearings of Rubber Room teachers for almost 5 years, and visit the Rubber Rooms every week. The article published in the New Yorker magazine article on the Rubber Room written by journalist Steven Brill is a fabricated tale that the NYC BOE will try to market as truth. Dont believe it.

The New York City Board of Education funds the "rubberization" process which removes tenured members of the United Federation of Teachers from their classrooms and jobs and places them in rooms called temporary re-assignment centers, TRCs, or “rubber rooms”. Sometimes members of the Principals’ Union, CSA, also end up in these locations. More often than not these re-assigned teachers and school personnel are not only experienced, but dedicated to protecting the health, education and welfare of the children under their care. Some do disobey rules and the law, and some are, indeed, incompetent. The system should remove these employees from the classroom, especially if there is evidence of misconduct or a crime, and there is substantial evidence to prove this. But many of these tenured, re-assigned people are removed simply because they notice theft, harm and other wrongdoing in their schools by others, and report the crimes and misconduct to authorities – the Special Commissioner of Investigation, for example. SCI then goes "after" the person for reporting what he or she has seen (do not believe the website). Suddenly the "mandated reporter" becomes the dreaded Whistleblower that no one in power wants around. For this reason, many acts of a criminal nature are pushed under the rug.

When you hear the word “incompetent”, look at the person who is writing or saying it. The word itself is situation specific. For example, if a teacher is tenured and teaches chemistry for 10 years and then the Principal assigns this person to teach high school English literature, most people would say that perhaps this person would be “incompetent” to teach that subject. When you find out that a teacher was placed in a Senior calculus class but actually is certified in teaching global history, you know something is wrong. When you hear that a teacher is “incompetent”, the very next question should be “at what?” Nine times out of ten this person can find a classroom right for him or her and the Principal is assigning the wrong one. Classic sabotage.

The person who is dragged through the door of his or her school is not always guilty of anything other than speaking up about someone else’s crimes. You can tell a person to be quiet and not say anything about school personnel doing something that harms someone else, but this doesn't always work. The thought is so unbelievable to a person that he/she would be retaliated against for trying to fix a problem that he/she won’t hide what looks like theft of funds, cheating, abuse of a child by the administration, and, as mandated reporters, speak out about it anyway. (What employees should do when they see harm being done to children in the school is call the police, report the abuse to the NYS Mandated Reporting Line: 1-800-635-1522, or call other non-BOE agencies).

Punishment is swift and degrading for the employee who leaks the news that the Principal hurt a child, that an Assistant Principal changed records, that there is racial and religious discrimination in publicly funded buildings of New York City, and other such activities. Almost every week we can read the NY POST or Daily News and see a school employee handcuffed and led outside the front door of his or her school in front of the very same children who were being taught by this person moments before.It is very easy for a Principal to make a call to the local police station and tell them that a teacher just touched/punched/hit a child, whether this teacher did so or not. Within minutes, cameras are in front of the school as the person accused is marched out in handcuffs. The public is "told" visually that this person was guilty of a crime, before there is any investigation. This is the process that Joel Klein has spent seven years perfecting, and the public must put a stop to it.

However, being re-assigned to a “rubber room” is often as simple as the Principal doesn’t want you, and doesn't want to train you or assign you to a class that is appropriate for you. The Principal can pick up the telephone or open his/her email, and let someone know at the NYC BOE that teacher X stole something, scrubbed test scores or harmed a child, and need not have any evidence or proof. The teacher is not informed of the allegation until the Gotcha Squad has “proven” the allegation, and he/she is on the subway, in a bus, or is driving to a TRC. Often, the employee does not know even then why he/she is going away from the students who are waiting in the school. The NYC BOE would like to get rid of the Union protection and fire the individual on the spot, but the UFT stops the firing of any tenured employee, and gives the employee a chance to gather evidence and prove his or her innocence. The UFT also provides, as I wrote above, some of the best lawyers in town, free of charge to its members for 3020-a hearings.

But the NYC BOE is not interested in finding the “right” classroom for an employee, and does not want people who have a conscience, are courageous, are too experienced, lose a loved one and must attend funerals, gets sick or has operations, or in any way impedes the business of education. Notice I did not say “educating”.

The education of more than 1 million public school children in New York City is a big business. Too big to allow any employee to undermine or sabotage the huge amount of funds generated every year by no bid contracts, scrubbed grades, false test results, and other misinformation that wins big awards. Guess who wins The Broad Prize every year? The most successful education business, not necessarily the school district that educated its students most successfully...and is validated by national testing standards (NAEP).

I have been writing on this website and on my blog (NYC Rubber Room Reporter) about the "rubberization" process since 2004, when I attended my first 3020-a hearing at the request of a re-assigned teacher named David Pakter. As my dad was Assistant Attorney General for the State of New York, I was familiar with the legal system from an early age, but I had never seen anything similar to what I saw at Mr. Pakter's arbitration. I decided then that I would research this further, and, for the past five years, I have attended hearings when asked by the teacher whose hearing it is, to attend, and he/she requests an open and public hearing. Full disclosure: I am a part-time consultant for the United Federation of Teachers, and therefore can visit the "rubber rooms" of New York City to speak with the teachers temporarily re-assigned now to any of the six separate locations. The time I spend sitting at hearings is my own time.

A tenured teacher accused of incompetence or misconduct not only has Union protection from being fired until the charges against him or her are "proven" by a preponderance of evidence, but the teacher also gets free legal representation from NYS United Teachers, or NYSUT, based in Latham New York. Most of these Attorneys are the best in the business, they know the rather unusual procedures followed at the arbitration hearings, they know the arbitrators, they care about their teacher-clients, and do thorough jobs.

I have, therefore, personal knowledge of what I write about the "3020-a" hearings of teachers displaced because of an allegation of wrong-doing or incompetence. One of the biggest problems with this process is the fact that Principals are immune from prosecution for any lies they tell or false claims alleged against anyone, due to the support and assistance of the City of New York Law Department, the New York City Board of Education, and the personal intervention of Joel Klein, his General Counsel Michael Best, Corporate Counsel chief Michael Cardozo, and Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon. Principals and Assistant Principals are almost always protected from any accountability for their own theft, conflicts of interest, misconduct, or incompetence. This in turn leads to an erosion of the working relationship between the administrators and everyone else inside a school building. I often hear how 20 or more teachers left at the end of a school year, rather than go back to a building where an abusive, hostile Principal wielded a heavy hand of unfairness and abuse against all the staff and teachers, with a few designated favorites staying out of the boxing ring. This is not good for the children, who always value stability, especially if they love a certain teacher who suddenly is gone without explanation. The children never forget this.

The "Gotcha Squad" starts the process when a Principal is told that something has happened in the school that involves a teacher, or a teacher is not making the grade - in his or her opinion - and must leave the school. This squad's assignment is to cull the personnel file of anything that can be used against the teacher to remove him/her from the school. Often, this "research" is done without any awareness of the teacher, and the teacher is re-assigned based upon the “sufficient” gathering of evidence to “prove” the case against him or her at a 3020-a.

Think of this as if you were working on your job for five years, and one day you are told to leave your school in five minutes, or at the end of the day, and report to a re-assignment center where you await charges. You could wait months, even years, for your charges. Your employer, the New York City Board of Education, may tell you that "an investigation" is being conducted, so you must wait until this is over. This information is either frivolous or false. The two resident investigating agencies, the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) and the Special Commissioner For Investigations (SCI) are not interested in conducting proper investigations unless there are documents/pictures/first hand witnesses who cannot be refuted. You know how that works - you are actually guilty and then you have to prove your innocence.

Sometimes the NYC BOE is right. Not all teachers are innocent. But no matter what, the process is broken, and the New York City BOE has placed unlimited power in the hands of Principals who can carry grudges to the extreme, and trash a person who they simply dont like. This is often called workplace bullying, or mobbing. The hardship usually begins and ends with mean-spirited administrators who want to use their power abusively. As the NYC BOE has control over the personnel file of each employee, and as accurate, factual information is the nightmare of the NYC BOE, Bloomberg and Klein have spent the last seven years getting “friendly” with the New York City media. How do I know? I know many of the reporters in NYC. I hear all the time, “They don’t want me to do that story” (if the NYC BOE may end up looking "bad"). However, it's perfectly ok for the NYC BOE to make re-assigned teachers in the "rubber rooms" look 'bad'. See the picture below which was used in Steven Brill's article "The Rubber Room - The battle over New York City’s worst teachers."

and the caption to this picture reads: "One school principal has said that Randi Weingarten, of the teachers’ union,“would protect a dead body in the classroom.”.

In fact, David Pakter’s story appeared on this website several times and on my blog, and also in the New York Teacher. For this last article, he was charged with making the NYC BOE “look bad”. The UFT demanded this charge be removed from his 3020-a specifications, and it was. Amidst the current economic downturn there is an office at Tweed, the NYC BOE headquarters, which continues to grow: the press/public relations office. The NYC BOE is deathly afraid of people who are not under their control, and write about their actions. I am proud to be in this group.

When I attended the open hearing of a teacher named Lucienne Mohammed at her request, I was not surprised to see Steven Brill and Ann Forte from the NYC BOE public relations office already sitting in the room assigned for the arbitration hearing. Lucienne’s case is a strong one for her and the UFT, and the NYC BOE is clearly worried. So, what they decided to do, is, I believe, 'encourage' Steven Brill to do an article on the Rubber Rooms with the main agenda being to put a quick end to Mrs. Mohammed’s employment. Mr. Brill could, he was told, have access to any file that he wanted, courtesy of the NYC BOE. So my questions to Mr. Brill are: First, who paid you to write the article on the NYC Rubber Rooms?? Second, if you were given Lucienne Mohammed's file, why didn't you write about her Special Complaint and her grievances?

I have written about payola before on this website. Mr. Brill and Ms. Forte stayed maybe 10-15 minutes at Ms. Mohammed's hearing, then abruptly left. We did not know that Brill had been given Lucienne’s file without her agreement or knowledge.

Yet look at the Protective Order and stipulation that New York City Law Department Attorney Maxwell Leighton sent teacher Hipolito Colon, who sued the NYC BOE for putting him in a Rubber Room after he blew the whistle on the wrong-doing of the Principal of PS 120, Liza Carabello. Mr. Colon asked for the disciplinary letter that Superintendent James Quail wrote to Principal Carabello for hiring an uncertified teacher for a year, and for other improper acts. Mr. Leighton sent Mr. Colon a log of all the documents that he could have IF he would not show anyone these documents. Ever. In this log, you can see documents that were given to the Panel For Educational Policy members who are not NYC BOE employees. You might ask, as I did, how do they get away with this selective viewing of material evidence?

Lucienne Mohammed has one of the most interesting cases that I have observed. I have attended almost all of her 30+ hearings, so I know her case and the people involved quite well and can say unequivocally that Steven Brill misinformed the readers of his biased article "The Rubber Room" published in the New Yorker magazine at the end of August, 2009. He could not have been more wrong about the facts in Lucienne's case.

Who is Steven Brill? He is an extremely bright man who seems to fail at everything that he does. A source told me that Mr. Brill is "a gun for hire" but doesnt really check his facts. I downloaded just a few of the ventures that he has started and that have failed, and I offer articles from the internet:

A journalist named Michael Wolff was investigated by Steven Brill in 1998, and he wrote about it:

New York MagazineWolff's Brill's Contentby Michael Wolff, August 31, 1998LINKWhen Steve Brill decided to investigate me, (pictured at right) I decided to investigate him back -- and therein discovered the "true" nature (more or less) of his overreaching crusade.

I am being investigated by Brill's Content."There are serious questions being raised about your new book," a young reporter from the magazine charges."Who's raising these questions?""I'm not free to tell you that.""It's a funny book," I say lightly. "I hope the questions aren't too serious." The book, Burn Rate, is a memoir about the birth of the Internet industry and the tragicomic (more farce than tragedy) failure of my own Internet business."I don't think it would be funny if you distorted the truth.""It's my story. It's the way I saw it," I sputter defensively, feeling unpleasantly compared to the disgraced reporter Stephen Glass.A few days later, Brill's reporter, Noah Robischon, calls back and asks for the notes and other materials I've used to write the book. He seems genuinely put out, affronted even, when I decline to surrender my notes."I think you should seriously think about turning them over," he says ominously.The editorial proposition of the magazine is that we all want to know about how the media works. The subtext is that journalists are such a despised class that large numbers of people will buy a magazine that rebukes them. "Journalists are probably the only people on the planet who make lawyers look good," says the magazine's chairman, CEO, publisher, and editor, Steven Brill, whose earlier entrepreneurial effort was a magazine about lawyers.The business proposition is aggressive, too. The magazine is not just for people in the media business. Brill's Content wants to achieve a circulation of 500,000 and attract big brand-name consumer advertisers -- a formidable, expensive, and wildly unlikely undertaking. Brill himself says it will cost $25 million. In an introduction to the first issue, editor Brill speaks of a search for truth -- Brill's reporters will be an independent truth squad ("We see this as the one black line in everything we are going to write about: Is it true?"). Putting aside questions of whose truth it will be, it's hard to imagine that a seasoned entrepreneur would spend $25 million only for the truth.Brill's mission is to cover the media, and so is mine; therefore, I reason with some insouciance, I should cover Brill covering me. Sort of Wolff's Brill's Content.I e-mail Brill's twentysomething reporter that I would like to question him about his questioning of me.In short order, Caroline Miller, New York's editor-in-chief, receives a call from Brill complaining that I am trying to intimidate his "young reporter." Partly, no doubt, because Brill himself is changing the assumptions of how to report who said what to whom, Ms. Miller prepares what lawyers call contemporaneous notes of her conversation with Brill. From Miller's report of her conversation, it's clear that Brill is not amused by the double reversal I'm proposing -- writing about Brill writing about me writing about other people. His mission, he obviously believes, is righteous, and mine dubious."The tenor of Michael's proposal," Miller says to Brill, "as it was conveyed to me, was quite . . . sportsmanlike.""Well," says Brill, "this was a young reporter, and when he came to talk to me about it, I have to tell you, he was scared to death. . . ."This seems to be, if not an invitation, at least a reason to call Brill himself. Brill says: "I do not discuss stories we're working on . . ." and hangs up on me. There's wrath in his voice, and some other note: fervor. (Minutes later, however, his assistant calls back to get my address, title, and other specifics for the office Rolodex.)I find myself asking the question the investigated always asks about the investigator: Who is this guy, anyway?In fact, it's hard to have hung around the media business and not know Brill. He's one of the business's unique creations. Many people have their Brill story: He's made them cry, or kept them waiting for hours, or upbraided them publicly. The stories of his financial ups and downs, his deals, his battles, his chutzpa, are legion. His passionate admirers are outnumbered only by his passionate detractors. He is what my father used to call "an operator." So his new role, necessarily holier than thou, seems an unlikely one.But maybe not.

His first venture, American Lawyer, launched in 1978, was dedicated to arbitrating the professional behavior of lawyers. As the bête noire of the legal community, Brill cut a vivid figure: a bouncerlike, cigar-smoking, bullying, crass-comic character in a Saul Bellow novel; part journalist, part wheeler-dealer, part power broker. It wasn't just lawyers whom he antagonized, either. The magazine New York Woman ran a story about the worst places for women to work, flatly stating that the story did not include jobs "inherently loathsome for men and for women, such as working in a subway booth, scrubbing floors or working for Steven Brill, the notoriously bullying editor of American Lawyer."Brill's bid to build a legal-publishing empire foundered on his expansion plans (he spent $30 million to $40 million on local legal newspapers), and in 1988, Warner's Steve Ross agreed to bail him out. What Brill sold Ross was a new idea: the law as tabloid television. Under the auspices of Time Warner (after Ross agreed to buy American Lawyer, the Time Warner deal happened), Brill launched Court TV, which, post-O.J., found itself at the bottom of the cable ratings.The mantra inside Time Warner whenever Brill's name came up was "Has this guy ever made money?"A year ago, having decided it did not want his legal publications and did not want him to run Court TV, Time Warner ousted Brill with a reported $20 million payoff for his remaining stake -- in media-mogul terms, a relative pittance. Certainly not enough to buy yourself another company.With the help of Howard Milstein, of the real-estate Milsteins, investment banker Lester Pollack, and Barry Diller (can you run a media-watchdog magazine when your partner is a media mogul?), Brill began Brill's Content."Once you come up with a couple of ideas that work, people will usually finance the next one no matter how dumb it is," Brill told the New York Times.And certainly on its magazine-business basics, Brill's Content is dumb. Try finding 500,000 subscribers to a magazine about ethical conduct. In fact, the idea is so dumb that you have to assume there is another strategy here beyond circulation and advertising.His choosing to call the magazine Content (Brill says the magazine changed the name to Brill's Content because of trademark issues), that awkward word that technologists use to describe the non-code stuff that augments software, is noteworthy. I think it's fair to assume Brill's Content's business model works like an Internet business model. The proposed $25 million investment in the magazine seems clearly designed to grab "mindshare," to build brand. And the brand is Brill.My guess is that Brill is trying to create an official seal of approval -- to become the independent prosecutor of information. (Indeed, I received a written set of interrogatories from Brill's reporter. Example: "Dinner in SF -- it's midnight for you and you stay up most of the night -- how did you get the right quotes from the people at the table?") Information's independent prosecutor is a very frightening thought, but it could also be an incredibly valuable one.In its most benign form, it could be a sort of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. We in the Brill Labs have tested this nonfiction and find that its sourcing methods and general probity conform to our standards. It is easy to imagine that Yahoo, for instance, could "partner" with Brill or "co-brand" with Brill. Brill would provide the editorial "brand" on the vast streams of content running through the global network. FEATURING ONLY BRILL'S CONTENT would flash across participating Websites.I have seen this business plan many times -- numerous entrepreneurs believe that the market demands a way to regulate the anarchy of content. We need a global editor (editor-in-chief of the world) to tell us what information we can trust. What this plan has always lacked is someone with the certainty and aggressiveness to say, I can tell you what's true and what isn't! Brill's Content, Brill says, "is about all that purports to be nonfiction. So it should be no surprise that our first principle is that anything selling itself to you as nonfiction should be true."Still, Brill has overreached before. If I were making suggestions about his business plan, I'd say the whole of nonfiction is a grab. Apparently, Brill doesn't want just television news or newspaper reporting. Brill wants everything that is not a novel or a poem to fall under his stamp of approval -- that is, news, essays, magazine features, memoirs, documentaries, history, criticism, speeches, polls, news-group postings, editorial cartoons, and the Bible, as well as a good deal of humor, satire, and parody. All this turned over to Brill's young reporters."Our approach," Brill says, "is to look at nonfiction media as a consumer product."For me, having written a book that is both true and satirical, one that, in the venerable tradition of satire, shamelessly settles many scores, it is something of a literary comedy or nightmare to be dogged by a young reporter calling up the various people I have savaged to get them to say, Yes, Michael Wolff is a person of questionable morals.Indeed. Alan Patricof, the New York venture capitalist and Clinton host and contributor who is a figure of some derision in my book (and who is or is not an acquaintance of Brill's), and who is represented by the noted First Amendment lawyer Marty Garbus (who is or is not an acquaintance of Brill's), is soliciting me to change certain passages about him in future editions of my book. Part of the inducement is that if I agree to make such changes, Patricof, Garbus suggests, will not talk to the Brill reporter who has contacted him regarding the story about me.And then: Brill's young reporter seems to believe I've made up the figure in my book of the smarmy AOL executive (I wish) who seduced me with deals that never got done. Though I decided for various soft-hearted reasons to spare this person public disclosure, now, according to Brill, in order to preserve my own reputation, I should name him."Why didn't you name names?" Brill's young reporter asked, oblivious to the echo.The reversals, inversions, and conflicts are breathtaking. The level of full disclosure that's required is Jesuitical. I suppose I should disclose that the more Brill criticizes my book the more books I sell; likewise, the more I rail against him, the more Brill Brill becomes. Brill, of course, is using the media to make a spectacle of himself covering the media. Brill is shocked, shocked; I am shocked, shocked that he is shocked, shocked. What Brill is showing us is not the backstage view of how the media really works, but the levers and cranks by which almost everyone, most of all Brill himself, gets hoisted by his own petard.Building brand, or making a name for yourself, is largely a function of aligning yourself with the Zeitgeist. As the Zeitgeist turns, Brill chose to go with Starr not Clinton -- with the prosecutor, not the rogue. Maybe he's picked right, although I hope not.

E-mail: michael@burnrate.com. E-mail: michael@burnrate.com.

Pretty scary stuff. Presently, Mr. Brill is trying to get media to set up a system whereby they will get paid for the information that they publish. Mr. Brill believes that people will want pay for information, and has started a business to provide this information to the media. In his rubber room article he does not say that he was paid by the NYC BOE, but it was very clear to Lucienne and me that indeed he was working with and/or for them when he wrote the article for the New Yorker. When someone is hired to write an article and does not disclose who is paying him or her, than there is a serious error, because the public will not know that the ‘facts’ cited in the article may not be true, or are reported in a biased fashion. I believe that Steven Brill was paid to write the article called “The Rubber Room” by the NYC BOE in order to provide the NYC BOE another step in the desire to overrule any presumed objection to what the NYC BOE is doing, i.e., making teachers guilty when indeed they are innocent of any charges. I believe that the public and teachers must look at the giving of personnel files to a reporter without prior approval of the person whose file it is, is unconstitutional.

Look at what the NYC BOE did to Teddy Smith (pictured above): "they" - meaning the SCI folk with the help of Theresa Europe at the ATU (Gotcha Squad) - published a report and sent it to the media saying that Mr. Smith had threatened to kill his arbitrator. Only investigator Michael Humphries of SCI NEVER asked Teddy whether or not he had said this!!! Teddy won his Article 75 appeal, and plans to sue.

Back to the New Yorker article, let me go over all of Mr. Brill’s erroneous “facts”:

-He says that when he entered the re-assignment center at 333 7th Avenue there 15 people in the room. I went every week to this location to speak to the members there, and never saw more than 10 during the 2008-2009 school year. Brill must have included the two security guards from Allied Barton (another no-bid contract) sitting right outside.

- paragraph two – a “system that rarely calls anyone incompetent”. Where is the proof, Mr. Brill? I want stats. And, did you interview each and every teacher in the TRC the day that you visited? If not, where does you statement of guilt by all stem from? Are the 8 teachers there all guilty of incompetence? No.

-“teachers have been in the rubber room for an average of three years” …oh, really? Prove it.

- that Joel Klein and Mayor Bloomberg are not popular is true.

-Brandi Scheiner has a “raspy” voice from Brooklyn, not Queens, and her voice was an asset to the school (PS 40) and the Principal Ms. Sandra Felder told her that. She received satisfactory ratings for most of her career, and never said that there was no such thing as “incompetence” before the Bloomberg/Klein takeover, and the statement that teachers simply realized their own incompetence and leave on their own is untrue and ridiculous. She told me that she never told Brill that she was a whistleblower, she never received two “U”s in a row, and her Principal Susan Felder never went to the Leadership Academy; her school, PS 40, is a successful school, one of many at the pre-2002 BOE. Who did Mr. Brill speak to about Principal Felder? No name? Maybe it was Ms. Felder herself. At least 17 teachers have left the school last year, according to Brandi Scheiner, and one committed suicide – because, it is believed, of the harassment of Felder.

- Dan Weisberg is quoted as saying that the effort is made to remove teachers in order to “make sure the right people are teaching there”. Please Mr. Weisberg – or, now David Brodsky, who are the “right” people? Good teachers, for sure. Who decides? If a principal dislikes a teacher because he/she is too black, too old, too senior, too smart, or “knows too much “ of the politics in the school, does this mean that he or she is a “bad” teacher? Often, yes it does to the NYC BOE. There is alot wrong with this criteria for excellence.

-test scores and graduation rates have improved since 2002? What do you expect, when doubletalk and scrubbing, and massive amounts of public relations time is purchased with public money? The truth can be hidden temporarily but not forever.

The biggest mistake Mr. Brill made was characterizing Lucienne Mohammed as an incompetent teacher. There is no evidence of that in all the 5,000 pages that the NYC BOE Attorney Dennis DeCosta brought to “prove” his case by the preponderance of the evidence. The 5,000 pages are pages that were read into the record from the notebooks held at the school on the Workshop Model and the scripts required of all teachers. I sat quietly, like I always do, at Lucienne’s first 13 days of her 3020-a while Jay Siegel, the arbitrator, allowed Assistant Principal Jaggon to read each page of the notebook, one by one. (By the way, why was Jay Siegel talking to Steven Brill at all, considering that this case is not over?).

I had no problem staying awake, but Dennis De Costa did. I started clocking his naps. He would nod off for 4 minutes, wake up for two, then nod off again. During his awake moments he sometimes writes a short note into his pad, but usually he draws rectangles and triangles. He colors them in, too. I have tried to copy his designs and I think I’ve got it right.

Dennis De Costa probably would not survive as an Attorney either on his own or at a large law firm. He is, in my opinion, not competent. In fact, last week I spoke with a teacher whose case was with Jay Siegel, and Dennis’ actions were so outrageous that when this teacher was completely exonerated, Dennis had to write a letter apologizing for his actions. He is a tall, handsome African American, and his tactic is to scream insults to gain points at a hearing. More than three times Mr. Siegel had to ask Dennis to leave the room with him to be reprimanded for screaming at Antonio Cavallero, Lucienne’s NYSUT Attorney. Dennis always chews gum.

Antonio Cavallero is one of the best attorneys I have seen. I am a big fan. He usually takes Dennis’ antics with a grain of salt, but every once in a while Dennis violates the ethics of common decency too much, and Antonio speaks out when that happens and is very effective.

Lucienne Mohammed is a beautiful person, inside and out. When I first met her more than a year ago, I thought that she must be a model. She is African- American and has the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen. She is also beautiful inside, a person of intelligence, character, and integrity. I am proud to say that she is my friend. The case against her is false, and the Principal is motivated to get rid of her because of her filing grievances .

I asked Lucienne to give me the information she would like to publish, so here it is:

From Lucienne Mohammed:“I have taught at PS 65 for a little over 17 years and have only received satifactory ratings. Ms. Daysi Garciabecame Principal in 2004 and by the end of her first term two Black Assistant Principals and guidance counselor lost their positions. The two administrators were demoted to their previous positions and the guidance counselor was sent to the Rubber Room.

In the 2005/2006 school year a teacher who supported the UFT and associated with me and the only other classroom teacher of African descent in our East New York school was advised to stop associating with us. When she continued the friendship she was harassed and then terminated in 2006. However, in a subsequent lawsuit the NYC BOE had to award costs to this teacher and clear her record.Ms. Garcia (pictured at right) is openly anti-UFT. She promptly disposed of our newly elected UFT representative in the beginning of the 2006 school year, he was sent to the Rubber Room along with the remaining Black Guidance counselor.

Ms. Garcia began an OSI investigation against me in October 2006 for taking part in the filing of a grievance regading teachers’ contractual right to have a menu of choices for their professional development period.

Ms. Garcia prosecuted me for supporting a boy whom she maligned in an open lunchroom by stating that the student’s religion (Islam) “cant be tolerated because it starves children”.

I reported to OEO in April 2007 Ms. Garcia for allowing a racist act to occur during a professional development conference wherein I and the only other teacher of African descent in our East New York school were told to play the role of “Big Ugly Negro”. In April 2007 I gave a character reference to a teacher in defense against slkanderous and discriminatory actions made by Ms. Garcia against him. This was followed by a slew of misleading, embellished, fabricated events put into letters placed in my file. After a series of attacks and harassment at the hands of Ms. Garcia, I filed an Article 2 Grievance in December 2007.

Since Ms. Garcia came to our school in 2004 I had never been given a U rating. My first came after the retirement of the Assistant Principal. Immediately following this Ms. Garcia put in her place a teacher of 4 years’ experience who was elevated rapidly to do her bidding which included harassing me and another teacher.

The new Assistant Principal was ordered to perform observations in the last 6 weeks of the school year, and I and another teacher of African descent received U ratings for the first time. I filed with the DOE’s OEO office, and filed another Article 2 grievance prior to my knowing that I had received a U rating.

Ms. Garcia admitted to making negative and derogatory remarks about me in the open office as was brought out during the arbitration hearing. I attempted to find some resolution for the constant harassment I was subjected to in the 2006/2007 school year and followed proper, recommended procedures: grievances, attempted dialogues, grievance, Special Complaint, OEO, and even a meeting with the Superintendent which was facilitated by State Assemblyman Darryl Townes.

The UFT validated my allegations of harassment and retaliatory behavior by accepting my case as a Special Complaint. Nothing has yet been resolved and Ms. Garcia made no attempt to compromise or have a dialogue. Instead, her harassment became more vicious and I was placed the following year in a new grade (5th) which had students at different cognitive levels and a different curriculum than that for which I was trained. I was given no training.

The 2007/2008 school year saw me in a small classroom with one of the largest, diverse ability group of students in the grade. The room was isolated from any other classroom. I had no desk, no file cabinet, student computers, or even closets. These conditions persisted until I was removed in June, 2008. I was the only teacher in the school who was required to hand in 18 lesson plans every Monday prior to the start of the school day.

Contrary to the UFT contract and the BOE agreement, I was told to sign up to be in the PIP+ program even though I had only one U rating, not two. The PIP+ peer evaluator was not competent to observe me: she had not taught in NYC since 1968; she had no supervisory certification or experience, no knowledge of the required curriculum and was not in a position to advise or mentor me. She did not follow the time allotted for pre- and post observations, and I never received her recommendations in a timely fashion. She stated for the record that she was told by the administration to support a U rating.

In June 2008 I was told to leave the school by the secretary and not allowed to retrieve any personal belongings such as books, my digital camera, games I had bought for the children. These items have never been returned to me.

Not satified with removing me from the school, Ms. Garcia sent police officers to my home after accusing me of theft of student funds, The police called this ridiculous.

I was ordered to sign for letters to my file weeks after being interned in the Rubber Room. Then, after being in the Rubber Room for 6 months, the administration again tried to file a charge against me, with OSI. The charges were unsubstantiated.

Mr. Brill was never given permission by me to see my file, and the NYC BOE will be held accountable for giving my file to a reporter without my knowledge or consent, especially given the fact that Mr. Brill took liberty to alter all the facts for his article. The letter, by the way, mentioned in Brill’s article, was NOT given eleven days earlier. It was from my doctor written the day before it was given I had been in the hospital with viral and bacterial bronchitis the Sunday and Monday of the previous week.

I was never asked questions about any “enforcer student” nor have I ever chosen a student to be an “enforcer”. Furthermore, it was during the 3020-a that I first heard of such charges.”

That’s from Lucienne. This is from me: I will be a witness for Lucienne Mohammed in any venue, at any time, and I will discuss the despicable sabotage of a beautiful, talented and dedicated teacher by the NYC BOE as represented in this case by Principal Daisi Garcia and Dennis De Costa, TPU Attorney at Law. I will try to remember to buy Mr. De Costa a package of gum before I speak.

6 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I know Lucienne and I can more than double the fan club of Lucienne and tell everyone that you will not easily find a finer human being and friend as her! Her family and scholl is blessed toi have he. I can write her a letter of recommendation right here, but you get the picture! In my opinion, what has been done to her by Klein and the DOE and its fat lawyers, liars and and shameless schemers is simply legalized criminality! THEY are the ones that should be put up on charges! They get away with it time after time and they have no conscience or shame about hurting great teachers like Lucienne! The real incompetents are these monkeys in fine suits!

Once again, as a reporter who never spares any pains and/or efforts in vetting the facts in her stories, Ms. Combier has hit all the proverbial nails on the head.

What comes across is that Brill is a Shill.According to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary the word "shill" is defined as:"One who acts as a decoy (as for a pitchman or gambler)"

Well now, I guess that says a mouthful about this supposedly highly intelligent man who can't seem to get his facts straight- or perhaps is not interested in getting his facts straight. Perhaps it would be more accurate to state that Brill is more intent on twisting the facts so out of shape that they more closely represent crude sketches of the salted pretzels one sees being hawked on street corners in NYC or in Central Park on Sunday afternoons.

I need not rehash here the amazingly huge amount of revealing information that Ms. Combier has unearthed by taking seriously her fiduciary responsibilities as a reporter as well as a "mandated reporter" when it comes to protecting the welfare of New York City's most valuable resource- that is to say the children of New York City.In fact Ms. Combier has spent her entire life fighting for the underdog, the oppressed, the powerless and all people everywhere and in many lands, here there and everywhere who are vulnerable to the winds of fortune and ill equipped and/or unable to protect themselves from people who would Lord it over them.

Two people in particular, in NYC seem to fall into that category of abusing their power. But for the sake of brevity, let's focus on NYC's Professionally uncredentialed, faux so-called Chancellor, former Federal Prosecutor, Joel Klein, Esq.

Ms. Combier, whose four talented Daughters all attended New York City Public schools, is more prepared than most people to comment on the Education scene in NY. In point of fact Ms. Combier has had good reason to immerse herself in the world of Education. I stated four of them above.

The remaining one million plus reasons is that Ms. Combier really does care for other Human beings- in particular the one million children whose Father does not occupy a luxury Duplex on Park Ave. and happens to be a schools Chancellor who would rather surrender his US passport before he would ever have allowed his own children to set foot in a NYC Public School._________________________________________

There is no reason for me to attempt to add anything to the facts as Ms. Combier has presented them, either as regards Mr. Education expert- Brill the Shill or any of Joel Klein, Esq.'s hundreds, (if not thousands) of other "hired guns", spin masters, stooges, lackeys, lapdogs and other assorted sycophants.

Unless the entire Universe becomes totally out of order due to some cosmic calamity, my New York State 3020a Teacher Trial will go down in the history books as one of the most stinging and utterly embarrassing Legal defeats for the NYC Dept of Education in memory.

Ms. Combier has covered both this insane "exercise in Whistle-blower Retaliation" as well as my first NYS Teacher Trial with great interest.

This trial continues in October, in which I am represented by one of the NYSUT attorneys, Ms. Combier so highly and correctly praises, for their fine legal defense work- in this case the Brilliant (as opposed to "Brill") legendary attorney, Christopher M. Callagy, Esq.

Those who may wish to see in real Life, what Ms. Combier has discussed in this and so many of her other hard hitting and well researched stories should attend my "Open to the Public"- October Hearings on Oct. 19, 20, 21 at 49 Chambers Street, 6th Floor at 10 AM.Please request the Hearing Room of the Hon. Douglas J. Bantle, Esq. who was selected to render the final Decision as to whether I should be Terminated as a NYC Teacher and be unceremoniously banished from Joel Klein's 22 Billion dollar Fiefdom, currently headquartered (appropriately) in that former palatial, marbled edifice, dedicated to civic corruption- the Courthouse of the notorious Boss Tweed, a full Century ago.

Isn't it strange how the more things change- the more they stay the same.

But thankfully there will always be reporters like Ms. Betsy Combier to step up to the plate and do the work that others are afraid to do, ill equipped to do or, more the Pity, would prefer not be done.Long life and Praises be upon your brow Ms. Combier. If only more people had your splendid sense of Honesty and above all- Courage.

I will look forward to seeing you when my Federal case-DAVID PAKTER -against- NEW YORK CITY DEPT OF EDUCATION; et al, begins in the UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT for the Southern District of New York.___________________________________________

This is a very good piece. I do think Ms. Combier, because she is in fact an outsider, doesn't truly grasp of the criminality which goes on before and in arbitration hearings. They aren't objective, hearing officers are not impartial, and they are little more than kangaroo hearings financed by the taxpayers. Few teachers ever win these fake hearings. If people really knew the truth about public education, and that is it is laughably easy to fire teachers, tenured or not, as principals are not closely supervised at all and do whatever they want and have districts' vast legal and financial resources to almost always "win" against terminated teachers, the public would be outraged as to why public schools are going down the tubes.

I believe you have to be a terminated teacher to truly understand just how hopelessly corrupt "due process" hearings are. They are NOT true "due process" as in real trials.

TV Appearances by Betsy Combier

Contact me with a concern or issue

I assist anyone who needs help, so email me your problem to start the ball rolling! I am a teacher/parent advocate, and I am the editor/writer for this blog and the website parentadvocates.org. I also write about court corruption on my blog "NYC Court Corruption". I am interested in random injustice and the criminalizing of innocent people. If you want to chat you may email me at: betsy.combier@gmail.com and I'm on twitter and have a facebook page too. I'm not an attorney and do not give legal advice.

If you want to talk with me about your 3020-a charges, I consult and go over your case without charge. No fee.

And, in response to the lies of certain individuals who resent my work, the truth is that all conversations are confidential and I do not tape secretly.

My Thoughts and Raison d'etre

This blog is about the denial of Constitutional rights by the Mayor, the New York City Department of Education and the Chancellor, New York State and Federal Courts, New York State legislature, and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), as well as PACs and all parties participating in the business of public school education in New York City, to harm and in neglect of parents, children, and staff of public schools in the five boroughs. These thoughts are not simply mindless conclusions reached out of thin air, but a result of 14 years of research into the NYC DOE and the Courts as a reporter and paralegal.
I am an advocate of Unions and union rights, public schools and charters, and learning online as well as outside of the classroom. I cannot and do not support anyone, whether they be union management, government, private members of the political or legal system, or simply retired teachers with an agenda, if he or she tramples, discards, or rebuffs anyone's individual civil rights. As a reporter, journalist, advocate, researcher and paralegal, I have created this blog to inform the public about my experience working for the UFT and being the parent of four daughters who went through the public school system in NYC, as well as examine issues that flow from the massive denial of due process rights that I saw and have documented. The two most important points you should remember: first, everyone at the New York City Board/Department of Education and all Union bigs are motivated by power and money, and looking good. If anyone dares to blow the whistle on these racketeers, retaliation follows, so be a strategist; second, I am not an Attorney and nothing I write or say is legal advice, simply my thoughts. Take 'em or leave 'em.
Betsy Combier, Editor
NYC Rubber Room Reporter
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com
New York Court Corruption
http://newyorkcourtcorruption.blogspot.com
Parentadvocates.org
http://www.parentadvocates.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/betsy.combier
Twitter: http://twitter.com/BetsyCombier
The NYC Public Voice
http://nycpublicvoice.blogspot.com/betsy.combier@gmail.com
Lawline July 27, 2011
http://www.teachem.com/lawlinetv/learn/lawline-tv-teachers-unions-the-last-in-first-out-rule/

Principal Anne Seifullah changes her image so that she can keep her job amidst sexting and trysts in the school, Robert Wagner Secondary Sch...

Testimonial from an Exonerated Teacher

Dear Betsy,I am forever indebted to you, Betsy, for your expert counsel throughout a horrific ordeal. You worked tirelessly to prove my innocence in a 3020a proceeding that was instigated by a corrupt school district and fueled by lies. My proceedings ended with my complete exoneration, my record expunged and my immediate return to the classroom. We didn't even need to file an appeal! Thank you, Betsy. I am now eligible to retire and enjoy the benefits you helped me to protect. God bless you and the work you do protecting the innocent.Sincerely,Maria Gargano

Betsy Combier is the Best!

Google + Rubber Room Community

FAITH

When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly. Patrick Overton

Truth Seeks Light - Lies Seek Shadows

Twins Jill Danger (left) and Betsy Combier(right)

sayin like it is

Actions Have Consequences

Writing as Music

Rubber Room teachers wish me a happy birthday (2006)

"Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all."

Rubber Room Satire

The Labor Movement

The Teaching Equation

We Can Work Out Our Differences

The E-Accountability Foundation

The E-Accountability Foundation brings you this blog which highlights issues that have or should be read by people interested in civil rights, and accountability. The E-Accountability Foundation is a 501(C)3 organization that holds people accountable for their actions online and, through the internet, seeks to bring justice to anyone who has been harmed without reason. We give the'A for Accountability' Awardto those who are willing to blow the whistle on unjust, misleading, or false actions and claims of the politico-educational complex in order to bring about educational reform in favor of children of all races, intellectual ability and economic status.

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Performance Management - Office of Labor Relations

From Betsy Combier

The NYC Office of Labor Relations, with the support of the UFT, has issued to principals a document called"Performance Management" on how to get rid of an incompetent teacher. Who is an "incompetent teacher"? Anyone the NYC Department of Education wants to remove from the system because he/she is too senior (makes too much money), is disabled (and therefore cannot be deemed factory-perfect) and/or is other impaired (is a whistleblower, cannot be intimidated, is ethnically challenged - not the 'right' race, etc).

Candace R. McLaren

Director, Office of Special Investigations (OSI)

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Polo Colon

"Rubber Room"

(1) a space where a worker subject to a disciplinary hearing or other administrative action waits and does no work; generally, a place or personal mind-set of isolation.(2) a literal reference to a padded cell, which is, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, “a room in a psychiatric hospital with padded walls to prevent violent patients from injuring themselves.”from Double-Tongued Dictionary http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/dictionary/rubber_room/

"Rubberization"

The word "rubberization" is a new word that is used to describe the process of assigning and paying people to sit and do nothing in a drab room away from their place of employment while their employers make up charges that allege sexual or corporal misconduct without any facts upon which to base the allegation on.

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Theresa Europe, NYC BOE ATU Director

Robin Greenfield

Deputy Counsel to the NYC DOE

UFT Pres. Mike Mulgrew and NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg

UFT umbrella pals

New York State Supreme Court Judge Manuel Mendez

ATR CONNECT

Tenured Teachers who are found to be guilty of misconduct or incompetency at 3020-a but are not terminated, who have blown the whistle on the misconduct of politically favored NYC Department of Education employees, and/or who are simply disliked for any reason can suddenly find themselves in the ATR ("Absent Teacher Reserve") pool - employees without rights or voices, and without chapter leader union representation.

This new group of people are the "new" rubber roomers without representation at the UFT and denied the protection of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, because basically they have been pushed out of their jobs unfairly and under color of law by Mayor Bloomberg and the Chief Executives of the Department of Education who call themselves "Chancellors", "Network Leaders", "Superintendents", etc., consistently without any facts or evidence to support the false claims.

A group of teachers who are, or were, made into ATRs, ATR Polo Colon, and I, Betsy Combier, an advocate for transparency and labor/employment rights, have joined together to expose the denial of due process, civil and human rights by chiefs of the NYC Department of Education (NYC DOE), certain arbitrators at 3020-a, leaders of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the "investigators" -agents who work for the Special Commissioner of Investigation (SCI), Office of Special Investigation (OSI), and the Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO) - and the Attorneys who work for the New York United Teachers (NYSUT), and the New York Law Department (Corporation Counsel).

In order to protect the safety of those who join this group to promote an end to the "Rubberization" process described on this blog since 2007, names of those who tell their stories will, for now, remain anonymous if the person so desires, and Polo and I will be the gatekeepers. So if you are an ATR, or know a story involving an ATR or someone re-assigned or about to go into a 3020-a, please use the email address advocatz77@gmail.com and give us your contact information. We will protect your anonymity and hold onto your privacy.

Betsy Combier and Polo Colon, Editors

FAITH When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly.

Patrick Overton

We have forty million reasons for failure but not a single excuse.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

The Re-Assignment Overview by Betsy Combier

The New York City Board of Education decided in 2002 to rid the public school system of staff who interfered with their takeover and control. The criteria for a "good teacher" is now, more often than not, a "silent teacher", a person who never asks questions, is younger than 40, is making a salary below $50,000, does not care about kids and what they learn, or whether or not money (books, supplies, equipment, etc) is missing. When a teacher or staff member of a school dares to do the right thing and speaks out about wrong-doing - this person is often called a "whistleblower" or "flamethrower" - or, simply is not liked for any reason by the Principal/NYC personnel, suddenly he/she is accused of something by somebody ("given a label of "A", "B", "C", and so on) and whisked away to a drab room called a temporary re-assignment center or "rubber room". Members of the offices of the Special Commissioner of Investigation or the Office of Special Investigations then start work on building a case against the person to justify their being thrown in prison, declared "unfit for duty", or, as Mr. Joel Klein has said, characterized as "guilty of sexual activities and corporal punishment" against the children of New York City.The stories of the people I have met who sit every day in the 8 rubber rooms of NYC prove to me that Mr. Klein is very wrong about his assessment, and this blog is created to prove it to you.

Puppy Snooze

US Department of Labor ELAWS

Aeri Pang, Gotcha Squad Attorney

Attorney Pang, red dress, now chief Attorney For New York State Supreme Court Judge Cynthia Kern

New York State Supreme Court Judge Cynthia Kern

NYC EdStats You Can Use

$12.5 billion: Annual New York City Department of Education (DOE) budget (2002)

$21 billion: Annual New York City DOE budget (2009)
1,719: Number officials employed by the DOE central administration in June 2002

2,442: Number of officials employed by the central administration as of November 2008

2: Number of DOE officials earning more than $180,000 per year in 2004.

22: Number of DOE officials earning more than $180,000 per year in 2007.

5: Number of DOE public relations staffers in 2003.

23: Number of DOE public relations staffers in 2008.

944: Number of contracts approved by DOE in 2008, at a total cost of $1.9 billion.

20: Percentage of contracts that exceeded estimated cost by at least 25 percent.

$67.5 million: Annual budget of Project Arts, a decade-old program that was the sole source of dedicated funding for arts education. It was eliminated in 2007.

86: Percentage of principals who said in a 2008 poll that they were unable to provide a quality education because of excessive class sizes in their schools.

100,000: Number of seats DOE plans to provide for charter school students by 2012.

25,000: Number of seats DOE plans to build under 2010 to 2014 capital plan.

66,895: Number of K-3 school-children in classes of 25 or more during the 2008-09 school year.

15,440: Average number of seats per year built during the last six years of the Rudolph Giuliani administration.

10,895: Average number of seats per year built during the first six years of the Bloomberg administration.

27.2: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2001-02 who were Black.

14.1: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2006-07 who were Black.

53.3: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2001-02 who were white.

65.5: Percentage of newly hired teachers in 2006-07 who were white.

76: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Latino students in 8th grade English Language Arts (ELA) in 2003.

75: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic students in 8th grade ELA in 2008.

77: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic 8th graders in math in 2003.

81: Percentage of white and Asian students who performed better than the average Black and Hispanic 8th graders in math in 2008.

54: Percentage of New York City public school parents who disapproved of Mayor Bloomberg’s handling of education, according to a March 2009 Quinnipiac poll.

Sources: New York City Council, New York City Comptroller’s Office, New York Daily News, New York Post, Eduwonkette, Quinnipiac Institute, Black Educator, Class Size Matters, New York City Schools Under Bloomberg and Klein.

Betsy Combier and NYSUT lawyer Chris Callagy

The New York City Whistle Award

NYC Whistlers, Winners of the NYC Whistle Award

...are those individuals in New York City who are willing to whistleblow unjust, misleading, or false actions and claims of the politico-educational complex in order to bring about educational reform in favor of children of all races, intellectual ability and economic status. Whistlers ask questions that need to be asked, such as "where is the money?" and "Why does it have to be this way?" and they never give up.

These people have withstood adversity and have held those who seem not to believe in honesty, integrity and compassion accountable for their actions.

Congratulations, and keep up the good work!

Betsy Combier

Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon

Condon "qualified" for his current post after Bloomberg lowered standards; who will leash him?

A great teacher

After being interviewed by the school administration, the prospective teacher said: 'Let me see if I've got this right.

'You want me to go into that room with all those kids, correct their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse, monitor their dress habits, censor their T-shirt messages, and instill in them a love for learning.

'You want me to check their backpacks for weapons, wage war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, and raise their sense of self esteem and personal pride.

'You want me to teach them patriotism and good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, and how to register to vote, balance a checkbook, and apply for a job 'You want me to check their heads for lice, recognize signs of antisocial behavior, and make sure that they all pass the final exams.

'You also want me to provide them with an equal education regardless of their handicaps, and communicate regularly with their parents in English, Spanish or any other language, by letter, telephone, newsletter, and report card.

'You want me to do all this with a piece of chalk, a blackboard, a bulletinboard, a few books, a big smile, and a starting salary that qualifies me for food stamps. 'You want me to do all this and then you tell me. . . I CAN'T PRAY?

NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly

Joel Klein's famous statement about rubber room teachers and staff

On November 27, 2006, temporarily re-assigned teacher (TRT) Polo Colon asked Joel Klein, the "pretend" Chancellor of the NYC public school system, if he had voted to terminate teachers at the secret Executive Session held just before the public meeting of the Panel For Educational Policy.Mr. Klein answered,"We did not vote to terminate you. We did vote to terminate a teacher in executive Session...in fact, we voted to terminate two teachers. It's perfectly consistent with the law.Many teachers have been charged with sexual activities and some are charged with corporal punishment...I have no interest in removing people who are qualified to teach, I can assure you, because I dont get any return...and in fact, I have complained publicly about how long this process drags out. But our first concern will always be and, as a former lawyer and somebody who clerked on the United States Supreme Court I will tell you, there is no violation of due process whatsoever..."- extracted from the audiotape of the PEP meeting bought by Betsy Combier after filing a FOIL request to the NYC BOE

November 26, 2007 Candelight Vigil

The School Law Blog

A Review of Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools by Betsy Combier

Lydia Segal's book puts the NYC, Chicago, and California Departments of Education on notice....we who have read this book know more about how the system is not there for our kids than "you" want us to know. Lydia Segal's book Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools changes the public school reform movement forever. We can no longer assume that more money allocated to our schools will "fix" the disaster that is our public school system.

Lydia Segal draws on her 10 years of undercover investigation and research in over five urban school districts, including the three largest, New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, and the two most decentralized, Houston and Edmonton, Canada, to provide, in her new book Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools, the details of the corruption, theft, fraud, and patronage that has overrun our public school establishment for several decades. There is no question that anyone who is interested in school reform -this means anyone who pays taxes, is a parent or guardian of a child attending school and/or who works toward a goal of establishing an education system that puts children first - must read this book. Ms. Segal's research and information on the education establishment's 'dark' side outrages the reader, and incites us to demand change. Her book therefore, is much more than a book, it is a call to action. We cannot be bystanders any longer to the systemic abuse she so vividly describes, and we will never be able to listen in the same way ever again to school Principals, Superintendents, school custodians or district board members as they request more money "to help the children."

The book's detailed reports on the corruption and crime in our public schools, supported by 52 pages of interview notes, references and specific examples, provide irrefutable evidence that the current failures of our nation's public schools are not due to the lack of money but the impossibility of getting the money to the children who need it and for whom the money is allocated in the first place. Recent statistics show that students of all ages are not learning what they need to know, schools are overcome with violence, teachers are demoralized, and yet billions of dollars are literally shovelled into the system every year. The New York City school system receives more than $16 billion every year; Los Angeles, $7 billion; and Chicago, $3.6 billion. Where does this money go? We have all asked this question as we have walked through school hallways dodging the paint falling off the walls and ceilings, watching our children sitting on broken chairs, using bathrooms without running water or toilet paper, and struggling to achieve their personal best without the services and resources they are supposed to have. Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools is the first book ever to systematically examine school waste and corruption and how to fight it. Ms. Segal, an undercover school investigator turned law professor, documents where the money goes, how waste and fraud embedded in the operation of large school bureaucracies siphon money from classrooms, distort educational priorities, block initiatives, and what we can do to bring badly-needed change. She describes in detail how only a small percentage of the money allocated to students in our public schools actually gets used by them due to corruption and waste, and how city school systems scoring lowest on standardized tests tend to have the biggest criminal records and most payroll padding. Coding problems, the procurement process, compartmentalization and opacity of information leave administrators with only two options: good corruption (which ultimately helps the kids) and bad corruption (which never helps anyone but the perpetrator and his/her allies and accomplices). Indeed, the system fights those who try the good corruption route.

Ms. Segal argues that the problem is not usually bad people, but a bad system that focuses on process at the expense of results. Decades of rules and regulations along with layers of top-down supervision make it so hard to do business with school systems that they encourage the very fraud and waste they were designed to curb. She tells us about how the "godfathers" and "godmothers" (the school board members) obtain jobs for their "pieces" in order to protect the systemic waste and fraud from being dismantled or exposed. Fortunately, she writes, there are good people involved in the corruption as well who must violate the rules in order to get their jobs done. Nonetheless, absurdities abound: school systems following rules to save every penny spend thousands of dollars hunting down checks as small as $25; it takes so long to pay vendors for their work that some have to bribe school officials to move their checks along; caring Principals who want to fix leaky toilets may have to pay workers under the table because submitting a work order through the central office could, and often does, take years. Meanwhile, those who pilfer from classrooms get away with it because the pyramidal structure of large districts makes schools inherently difficult to oversee. What makes Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools a must-read is not only the fascinating - and depressing - details of the systemic wrong-doing but also Ms. Segal's suggestions for reform, based on the proven track records of school systems across North America that have successfully reduced waste and fraud and have pushed more resources into schools.

The pathology of the corruption suggests the remedy, Ms. Segal says, which is decentralization of power into the schools and the hands of the Principals. Distilling what successful school systems have done, Segal advocates new forms of oversight that do not clog up school systems and recommends giving principals more discretion over their school budgets as well as holding them accountable for job performance. She argues for "autonomy in exchange for performance accountability" as part of a bold, far-reaching plan for reclaiming our schools. Her conclusion is logical and convincing. Everyone who reads this book will find his or her perception of public school education changed forever. We cannot accept any longer that a generation of children has been abused by a system that is so full of greed and corruption without screaming "stop!" and "Your game is up!"

Segal reveals how systemic waste and fraud siphon millions of dollars from urban classrooms and shows how money is lost in systems that focus on process rather than on results, as well as how regulations established to curb waste and fraud provide perverse incentives for new forms of both. Anyone who is interested in school reform--this means anyone who pays taxes, is a parent or guardian of a child attending school, and/or who works toward a goal of establishing an education system that puts children first--must read this book. --

Lydia G. Segal is Associate Professor of Criminal Law and Public Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.

The NYC BOE FAMIS Online Tour

The FAMIS Portal Online Tour provides an overview and demonstration of the FAMIS Portal. Computer speakers or headphones are recommended. Choose an item of interest below, or click on the Introduction to proceed through all of the modules in sequence.

About Me

Reporter, paralegal, advocate,I will investigate, search on the internet and in all data bases for information that will help a person in need of resolution to a problem.I believe in substantive and procedural due process for all individuals, groups and organizations and trademarked the term "e-accountability" to describe the purpose of my work. I am the parent of four daughters.

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